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EU commission presidency race is 'cosmetic' democracy

Dutch Socialist MP Harry van Bommel has said having an EU commission presidency race does not make the EU more democratic as the change is only “cosmetic". He told EUobserver he neither knew nor was interested in who was the European leftist candidate (Greece's Alexis Tsipras) for the post.

Central European countries say they have "nothing to hide" on rule of law issues - while justice commissioner Vera Jourova said they should agree to the Commission's controversial budget plans on rule of law conditionality.

Giovanni Buttarelli, the European data protection supervisor, says the EU-US data sharing pact known as Privacy Shield will play an increasingly minor role given the general data protection regulation.